I 




ClassJEYilll 
Book, ■ (•' Z 



COPmiGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 



THE ASSOCIATION 
SECRETARYSHIP 

CfK. OBER 



ASSOCIATION PRESS 

124 East 28th Street, New Yore 
1918 



-^ 



^^' 



Qi 



Copyright, igi8, by 

The International Committee of 

Young Men's Christian Associations 



MAR 19 1918 



©CU49414.5 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Origin of the Secretaryship . . 1 

II. Growth of the Secretaryship . 14 

III. Functions OF THE Secretaryship . 22 

IV. Specialization Within the Secre- 

taryship 38 

V. Relations OF THE Secretaryship . 46 

VI. Status of the Secretaryship . . 55 

VII. Compensations of the Secretary- 
ship 62 

VIII. Preparation for the Secretary- 
ship 72 

IX. Future of the Secretaryship. . 85 

X. How to Enter the Secretaryship 92 



CHAPTER I 
ORIGIN OF THE SECRETARYSHIP 

The Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion is one of the latest of the successive 
great movements in church history, by 
which Christianity has adapted itself to 
changed conditions in society. It is also 
one of the earliest of the great interde- 
nominational movements, in which Chris- 
tianity has united for a common task, too 
great for any single denomination. WTien 
the fountains of the great deep in the 
industrial and social world were broken 
up and the modern trend of the world's 
population cityward began, the instinct 
of self-preservation in home, church, and 
community created the Young Men's 
Christian Association. 

The Association Secretaryship is the 

executive office of the Young Men's 

Christian Association. It is a life calling 

or profession for men capable, adapted, 

1 



2 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

and qualified. It is generally recognized 
as a specialization in Christian work and 
social engineering, and within the general 
scheme of the Christian ministry. 

A "secretary," from the Latin secretum 
(secret), was originally a confidential clerk 
in private or public service, corresponding 
to the modern stenographer or ''private 
secretary. " 

As responsibilities increased, the "sec- 
retary" seems to have proven himself 
equal to the situation, for we find him 
in the position of the executive, with 
responsibility and initiative, as leader 
and administrator of men and affairs. 
"The man who knows" becomes the man 
who not only knows but does. This 
evolution of the secretary from clerk to 
executive is described in the historical 
sketch of the development of the Secre- 
taryship of State, in the Encyclopedia 
Britannica: 

Secretary of State, in England, is the 
designation of certain important members 
of the administration. The ancient Eng- 



ORIGIN 3 

Hsh monarchs were always attended by a 
learned ecclesiastic, known at first as 
their clerk, and afterwards as secretary, 
who conducted the royal correspondence; 
but it was not until the end of the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth that these function- 
aries were called secretaries of state. Up- 
on the direction of public affairs passing 
from the privy council to the cabinet, 
after 1688 the secretaries of state began 
to assume those high duties which now 
render their office one of the most influ- 
ential of an administration. . . . 

There are now five principal secretaries 
of state, four of whom, with their political 
under-secretaries, occupy seats in the 
House of Commons. One of these secre- 
taries of state is always a member of the 
House of Lords. The secretaries of state 
are the only authorized channels through 
which the royal pleasure is signified to 
any part of the body politic, and the coun- 
ter-signature of one of them is necessary 
to give authority to the sign manual. 
The secretaries of state constitute but 
one office, and are coordinate in rank and 
equal in authority. Each is competent in 
general to execute any part of the duties of 
the secretary of state, the division of duties 
being a mere matter of arrangement. 



4 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

In the United States the "secretary of 
state" is a member of the executive, who 
deals with foreign affairs, and who,, in 
the event of a vacancy in the office of 
President, is next in succession after the 
vice-president. The title of "secretary" 
— "of the treasury," "of war," etc., — is 
used for some other members of the ex- 
ecutive. In various states there is an 
executive officer called "secretary of 
state." 

In the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, the Secretaryship, although an evo- 
lution, as in the Secretaryship of State, 
was not an afterthought, but appears to 
have been a part of the original concep- 
tion of the Association work. 

The London Association, in the first 
year of its existence (1844-1845), em- 
ployed Mr. T. H. Tarlton as "Secretary 
and Missionary. " In 1850, an "Assistant 
Secretary," Mr. William Edwyn Ship ton, 
was employed, who, in 1856, succeeded 
Mr. Tarlton as "Secretary" of the Lon- 
don Association, continuing in this posi- 
tion for twenty-three years. Mr. Ship- 
ton was a man of ability and education, 



ORIGIN 5 

with a virile and attractive personality. 
He proved to be an efficient leader and 
executive, under whose administration 
the London Association not only attained 
a conspicuous development in its home 
field, but suggested and promoted the 
organization of Associations in other 
cities in Great Britain, on the Continent 
of Europe, and throughout the world. 

The Boston Association, organized in 
December, 1851, secured a "Librarian" 
in 1852, which position was filled in suc- 
cession by four men in six years, 1852- 
1858. In 1858, the Association secured 
as "Librarian" Mr. L. P. Rowland, who 
soon after became known as " Correspond- 
ing Secretary," continuing in the service 
of the Boston Association for fifteen 
years. Mr. Rowland was a man of genial 
personality, active, evangelistic, and an 
enthusiastic promoter of the Association 
idea, not only in Boston but throughout 
New England. Chiefly under the advo- 
cacy of Mr. Rowland, Associations sprung 
into existence during this period in more 
than one hundred and fifty cities and 



6 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

towns in the State of Massachusetts alone. 

The Philadelphia Association employed 
Mr. John Wanamaker as its first "Secre- 
tary" for the two years from the latter 
part of 1858 to the latter part of 1860, 
when he resigned to take up his remark- 
able business career. Mr. Wanamaker 
has been a constant friend and contributor 
to the Association work, being the largest 
individual donor to the Association equip- 
ment in his home city of Philadelphia, 
and erecting at his own expense four mod- 
ern Association buildings in the capital 
cities of India, China, Korea, and Japan. 

The Chicago Association secured Mr. 
D wight L. Moody as "Librarian and 
Agent," and later as "President," from 
1865 to 1869. It was in this position 
that Mr. Moody's remarkable gift as an 
evangelist first found opportunity for ex- 
pression, and he always regarded the 
Association as the agency which, under 
God, had developed him for Christian 
work. Mr. Moody continued throughout 
his life a strong believer in the Association 
Secretaryship, encouraging not a few 



ORIGIN 7 

very able men to enter it as their life 
work. 

Up to this time, the Association Secre- 
taryship had attracted strong men, but 
with the exception of Mr. Shipton of the 
London Association, had not been able to 
hold them. The Association itself was 
then a comparatively small affair — new, 
undeveloped, without precedent, without 
property, and without the record of 
achievement which now appeals to the 
strongest type of men, with the assurance 
of a life career commensurate with their 
powers. The Association was a great 
idea, but it had not materialized. In 
fact, it was lacking in the very element 
which could be supplied only by the 
Secretaryship. The Association of vol- 
unteer workers demanded the specialist; 
the organization waited for the organizer. 
In response to this demand there had 
come a succession of great pioneer Secre- 
taries, but the typical Secretary had not 
yet appeared. The Secretaryship was 
still but little more than a promising ex- 
periment. 



8 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

There came, however, into the Sec- 
retaryship a man who was preeminently 
adapted to its requirements, and who 
was ready to give his life to it. Robert 
R. McBurney, becoming ''Librarian" of 
the New York City Association in 1862, 
known as "Corresponding Secretary" in 
1865, later as "General Secretary," 
created for himself in that position 
a life work of thirty-six years, in which 
he built a model City Association and 
demonstrated the Association Secretary- 
ship as a great calling and profession. 
The type of Association work developed 
by McBurney in New York City has be- 
come the model for the cities of three 
continents, and, since McBurney blazed 
the trail, it has not been difficult for 
young men of promise, looking for a great 
life work, to find the path into the Asso- 
ciation Secretaryship. 

The Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, however, is more than a local enter- 
prise. The local Associations have fed- 
erated, and employ (in 1916) more than 
five hundred of their 4,600 Secretaries for 



ORIGIN 9 

the work of International, National, 
State, and County Committees, as pro- 
moters and multipliers of Association 
work in the Association's home and 
foreign fields. 

The origin of the Association Secretary- 
ship for this federated work was in a mis- 
sionary impulse, at the International 
Convention of the Associations in Detroit 
in 1868. The Union Pacific Railroad was 
at that time under construction west- 
ward from Omaha, employing thousands 
of men living in its construction camps, 
exposed to peculiar temptation, and cut 
off from social and religious privileges. 

The Convention authorized and em- 
powered its Executive Committee to 
send a Secretary to these men, to minis- 
ter to them in the name of the Associa- 
tions. The Committee secured for this 
work Robert Weidensall, a college grad- 
uate who had been in the Engineering 
Corps through the Civil War, was then 
employed in the Union Pacific Shops at 
Omaha, and actively identified with the 
work of the Omaha Association. The 



10 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

work in the railroad construction camps 
proved temporary, but Mr. Weidensall 
has continued with the International 
Committee for an unbroken life work of 
remarkable leadership and achievement, 
as interpreter and builder of all forms of 
local and federated Association work 
throughout the United States and Can- 
ada. 

In the following year (1869), the Inter- 
national Committee employed Mr. Rich- 
ard C. Morse, a college and theological 
seminary graduate, with practical train- 
ing in religious journalism, to become the 
editor of The Association Monthly, the 
official organ at that time of the Associa- 
tions of North America. This enterprise, 
like Mr. Weidensall' s work in the con- 
struction camps, proving temporary, Mr. 
Morse was called to the position of Gen- 
eral Secretary of the International Com- 
mittee, which position he filled with great 
ability and statesmanship for forty-five 
years, until succeeded by Dr. John R. 
Mott, in 1915. 

In this year of 1869, in which Mr. 



ORIGIN 11 

Morse entered the work of the Interna- 
tional Committee, Mr. McBurney, after 
seven years of preHminary work, saw the 
New York Association estabUshed in its 
magnificent new building, the first of its 
kind in existence and the first to provide 
for the fourfold work of the Association — 
a building which for a quarter of a cen- 
tury was to be an inspiration and a model 
for similar Association buildings through- 
out the world. Mr. McBurney was a 
member of the International Committee 
and for thirty years, until his death, in 
1898, worked in closest fellowship and 
cooperation with Mr. Morse and Mr. 
Weidensall in building up the Association 
movement in both its home and foreign 
fields. 

It is significant that these three great 
Secretaries, practically the first to find a 
life work in the Association Secretary- 
ship, should come to a position of leader- 
ship in the Association movement in 
1869 — the year in which the "Portland 
Test of Active Membership" was adopted, 
determining the evangelical character of 



12 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

the Associations and their relation to the 
Church. It was twenty-five years from 
the initial meeting in the upper room in 
London to the model Association in the 
splendid building in New York City, the 
federated Associations of North America, 
and the three Secretaries whose lives were 
dedicated to the planting of the Associa- 
tion, as they had come to see it, in the 
cities of a continent, and outward to the 
strategic cities of the world. 

The Association had found itself and 
the Association Secretaryship had ar- 
rived. 

1. What social phenomenon led to the 

organization of the Young Men's 
Christian Association.^ 

2. What is the Young Men's Christian 

Association Secretaryship? 

3. What is the origin and historic de- 

velopment of the term ' ' Secretary ' ' ? 

4. At what stage of the Association's 

growth was the Secretaryship in- 
stituted? 



ORIGIN 13 

5. What titles have at various times 

been used to designate the Asso- 
ciation employed oflBcer? 

6. Name some early Secretaries who 

later became distinguished men. 

7. Who first demonstrated the Young 

Men's Christian Association Secre- 
taryship as a life calling? 

8. Relate the circumstances of the se- 

curing of the first traveling Secre- 
tary. 

9. Who was the third member of this 

first group of three great pioneer 
Secretaries? 
10. What was the first important ma- 
terial expression of McBurney's 
genius? 



CHAPTER n 
GROWTH OF THE SECRETARYSHIP 

By the time that Shipton, McBurney, 
Weidensall, and Morse had discovered 
the Secretaryship, in 1869, the Associa- 
tion was twenty-five years old. In this 
brief period, the Association movement 
had estabUshed itself in the principal 
cities of Europe and America, had planned 
and erected a typical building in New 
York City, at a cost of half a million 
dollars, to provide for and give expression 
to its many-sided work, and had attracted 
to its Secretaryship at least four excep- 
tionally strong men. 

These men had seen the vision of a new 
calling, a great profession. In their minds, 
the Association Secretary was more than 
a private secretary, more even than a 
trusted executive. He was the promoter, 
builder, organizer of a working Associa- 
tion. He was the man who knows and 

14 



GROWTH 15 

does, but he was also, and chiefly, the 
man whose knowledge and executive 
ability were consecrated to the object of 
making the Association know and do its 
work through the associated efforts of its 
members. 

The growth of the Association move- 
ment is the outworking of this idea. If 
these eflBcient men and their associates 
and successors in the Secretaryship had 
undertaken to do the work of the Asso- 
ciations, the Secretaries might have in- 
creased, but the Associations would have 
decreased and possibly would have dis- 
appeared. The fact of the Young Men's 
Christian Association and its place and 
opportunity in the life and work of the 
twentieth century is a living witness to 
the greatness of their conception of the 
Secretaryship. 

Starting with and holding fast this 
conception of its mission, or "high call- 
ing," the Association Secretaryship has 
experienced a phenomenal development. 

i. Growth in Numbers. The number of 
positions for Association Secretaries in 



16 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

North America has increased as follows: 

5 in 1866 

108 in 1876 

517 in 1886 
1,311 in 1896 
2,490 in 1906 
4,642 in 1916 

2, Growth in Variety, The beginnings 
and growth of the Secretaryship in the 
different groups of Associations and de- 
partments of Association work may be 
seen from the following table: 

Association Secreiaryshipa 1866 1876 1886 1896 1906 1916 

General Secretaryships 

City Associations 5 68 273 571 626 750 

Railroad Associations 55 100 219 231 

Student Associations ... 1 18 87 129 

Army and Navy Associa- 
tions 32 27 

Department Secretaryships 

Physical 35 220 398 580 

Boys' 18 111 341 

Educational 10 38 68 

Religious 22 57 

Other Depts. (Memb., Emp., 

Social, Financial) 8 7 63 229 

Asst. Secretaryships (Gen- 
eral and Departmental) ... 24 111 272 626 1501 
County and Asst. County 

Secretaryships 5 33 108 

State and Asst. State Sec- 
retaryships ... 11 23 55 106 204 

International Secretaryships 

(Home) ... 5 13 28 63 121 

International Secretaryships 

(Foreign) 7 66 199 

Special Secretaryships 97 



GROWTH 17 

3. Growth in the Dimensions of the Task. 
The task or responsibility of the Associa- 
tion Secretaryship is four times greater 
than it was twenty years ago. This may 
be seen by the following survey of the 
growth of one hundred City Associations 
and the growth of Association religious 
work. 



100 Selected City Associations 

Annual 
1896 1916 Percentage 
of Growth 

Average Membership 741 1,982 8 . 4 

« Value of Buildings $99,120 $328,473 12 

« Secretarial Stafif 3 11 13 

« Educational Dept. (students) 151 548 13 

" Secretarial Executives 1 4 15 

« Boys' Dept. (membership) . . 106 472 17 

" Current Expenses $8,013 $52,551 23 

All Associations (except student) 

Annual 
1900 1916 Percentage 
of Growth 
Attendance all Religious Meet- 
ings 1,917,018 7,234,134 17 

United with Churches 1,322 8,385 33 

StudentsinBibleClasses... .. 13,676 115,593 46 
Attendance, Shop Meetings 

and Bible Classes 75,000 2,044,946 164 

Note: On account of changes in the questionnaire by which 
religious work statistics were gathered, exact information con- 
cerning several items of Association religious work is not 
available for the years 1896-1899. These statistics are» there- 
fore, given for sixteen rather than for twenty years. 



18 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

4. Growth in Term of Service. The Asso- 
ciation Secretaryship, from the time of the 
definition of the fourfold work of the 
Association and its relation to the Church, 
has attracted and held the strongest type 
of men. Edwyn Shipton entered the 
Secretaryship of the London Association 
in 1850 and continued for twenty-three 
years; McBurney of New York City, 
Sinclair of Dayton, See of Brooklyn, and 
Shurtlefif of Cleveland remained in the 
Secretaryship until their death, after an 
average service of more than twenty-eight 
years. 

Budge of Montreal, Morriss of Balti- 
more, Whitford of Buffalo, Messer of 
Chicago, McCoy of San Francisco, and 
John R. Mott of the International Com- 
mittee, have already seen an average of 
thirty-seven years of secretarial service, 
and Morse and Weidensall, entering the 
Secretaryship in 1868-69, still continue 
after a service of forty-eight and forty- 
nine years. 

"But," some one will say, "these are 
exceptional men." This is true, and the 



GROWTH 19 

life work argument for the Secretaryship 
is all the stronger for that; for only a great 
and growing work can satisfy and hold 
such men. 

The Association Secretaryship Is an 
exceptional life work opportunity for 
exceptional men. While the number of 
major secretarial positions in the North 
American Associations is three times 
greater than it was twenty years ago, the 
number of life work opportunities for 
exceptional men is more than ten times 
greater. This is the principal reason why 
so many men do not find a life work in the 
Secretaryship. The life work is there, 
but it is for the men who are equal to it. 

Of the 4,401 Association Secretaries 
and Assistants in 1916, 1,018 had served 
for less than two years. The records of 
the Secretarial Bureau show that 56 per 
cent of the men leaving Association work 
do so before they have completed two 
years of service. Considering, therefore, 
this initial two years as an investigation 
or testing period in the Secretaryship, 
there were 3,383 men in 1916 with a 



20 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

record of two or more years in the As- 
sociation Secretaryship, with the follow- 
ing record of service: 

1,270 (38 per cent), 2 to 5 years. 

1,054 (31 per cent), 5 to 10 years. 

1,059 (31 per cent), 10 to 47 years. 

This number of 1,059 Secretaries and 
Assistants who had served for ten years 
or more is 48 per cent of the 2,201 men 
in Association work in 1906, the beginning 
of the ten-year period. Of these 1,059 
Secretaries, 519 had served from 15 to 
47 years, an average of 22 years. 

1. What was the conception of the Sec- 

retaryship, in the opinion of the 
early Association leaders? 

2. What bearing had their conception 

of the Secretaryship on the interest 
of the members in the work? 

3. How many employed officers were 

there in America in the decades 
from 1866 to 1916? 

4. Name ten branches of the Secretary- 

ship, indicating its growth in vari- 
ety of specialization. 



GROWTH 21 

5. To what extent was the Secretary's 

task bigger in 1916 than it was 
twenty years before? 

6. What relation has the growth of the 

Association in dimensions and 
equipment had to the rehgious 
activities for which the Secretary 
is responsible? 

7. What Secretaries have remained long 

in the service? 

8. What qualities of character contribute 

to length of secretarial service? 

9. During which years of their service 

do the largest number of Secre- 
taries drop out? 
10. What is it in the Young Men's 
Christian Association that has made 
the Secretaryship increasingly and 
most strongly appeal to strong men 
as a life calling? 



CHAPTER III 

FUNCTIONS OF THE SECRETARY- 
SHIP 

The Association Secretarysliip possesses 
functions distinctive as the Association 
itself, and varied as its many-sided work. 
To describe the functions of the Associa- 
tion Secretaryship, therefore, it is neces- 
sary to note the character and work of the 
Association. 

The most characteristic thing in the 
Young Men's Christian Association is the 
Association itself; and the best interpre- 
tation of the Association is doubtless that 
of "The Paris Basis," adopted by the 
first World's Conference of the Associa- 
tion, in Paris, in 1855, and reaffirmed by 
the World's Conference, in Paris, in 1905. 

According to the Paris Basis, "The 
Young Men's Christian Associations seek 
to unite those young men who, regarding 
Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour, 

22 



FUNCTIONS 23 

according to the Holy Scriptures, desire 
to be his disciples in their doctrine and in 
their Hfe, and to associate their efiforts 
for the extension of his kingdom among 
young men." The executive officer of 
such an Association, seeking to unite such 
young men with such a purpose regarding 
their own development, and to lead them 
to associate their efforts for such an ob- 
jective, has been compelled to develop 
and exercise functions commensurate with 
the importance and greatness of his task. 
1, Religious Leadership, The Associa- 
tion is primarily a religious organization. 
Its program of religious work is not merely 
one of many departments, but pervades 
all departments. It is in fact, as in name, 
a '^Christian'' Association. It is the re- 
ligious appeal that rallies to the member- 
ship of the Association the men and boys 
with capacity for unselfish service, and 
it is the religious motive that prompts 
and makes effective their associated ''ef- 
forts. " All of the great Association Secre- 
taries have been religious leaders, and the 
strongest element in their call to the 



24 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

Association Secretaryship has been the 
appeal of the opportunity to exercise 
their gift of religious leadership with men 
and boys. Their expectation was not 
disappointed by the Association, for the 
response to their religious leadership has 
given to the world one of the greatest 
religious movements of modem times, 
and the religious efficiency of any par- 
ticular Association or department has 
been in direct proportion to the religious 
leadership of the Secretary. 

The Association Secretary is not merely 
a religious leader within the Association, 
but also in his relation to the churches, 
as the executive of the principal inter- 
denominational agency in the commu- 
nity. This gives him an exceptional op- 
portunity to help all the churches and to 
promote the spirit and practice of Chris- 
tian imity, which is one of the greatest 
things in the program of Christianity. 

2, Friendship, The Association is not 
merely a religious organization. It is 
fundamentally a brotherhood, an expres- 
sion and a promoter of friendship among 



FUNCTIONS 25 

young men and boys. It ''seeks to unite'' 
young men both for fellowship and for 
service with other young men. The Sec- 
retary or executive of such a friendship 
movement should be a friendly type of 
man, one who makes and holds friends, 
who is interested in young men and boys 
for their own sake, whose influence is 
contagious throughout the Association 
membership, who wins men to himself 
and to the work of the Association. The 
Association also lends itself in a remark- 
able way to the promotion of friendship, 
through the breadth and unselfishness 
of its program and by affording almost 
unlimited opportunities for close and 
frequent personal contact and cooperation 
with young men and boys. The Secre- 
tary, therefore, may become the friend 
of multitudes of young men, including 
men of promise, who are tempted to hide 
their talent, or to use it selfishly; and, 
having won the friendship of these men, 
he may capitalize and utilize their com- 
panionship as a practically irresistible 
force in the winning of other young men. 



26 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

3, Organization. One in seven of the 
Association members in North America is 
a member of a working committee; and 
the Associations employ a staff of about 
six Secretaries for every one thousand 
members. 

The committeemen and secretarial asso- 
ciates in each Association are to each 
General and Department Secretary what 
the fighting men and junior officers are 
to the commanding officer in an army 
division, and their efficiency is in pro- 
portion to their organization. The Sec- 
retary is an organizer as contrasted with 
an individualist. He is working on Mr. 
Moody's idea of setting ten men at work, 
rather than trying to do the work of ten 
men, even if that were possible. 

On this principle of organization, the 
Secretary selects and coaches the Asso- 
ciation members, and they go out to 
reach the entire young man and boy 
population of a city, at a thousand points 
of contact. In the process, workers are 
developed and leaders discovered, any 
one of whom, with encouragement and 



FUNCTIONS 27 

training, may become a greater leader 
than the Secretary himself. 

^. Coaching and Training. The Secre- 
tary needs to give special attention to the 
coaching and training of the younger 
Secretaries, Assistants, and committee 
members, not only that the work of the 
Association may be efficient, but that 
these potential leaders may be developed 
and take their places of leadership in 
Association, church, and community serv- 
ice. The kind of work Christ did in the 
training of the twelve, the Secretary may 
do with many times twelve men; and 
scarcely any other work that he can do 
will be more important. To some of 
these men special attention will be given, 
and one or more may be in the place of 
understudy to the Secretary, in training 
for positions of largest responsibility. 
The Secretary proceeds on the principle 
that the surest way to make one's work 
immortal is to find and develop the men 
who are capable of reproducing and per- 
petuating it. The great apostle had this 
in mind when he wrote to his understudy, 



28 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

Timothy, "the thmgs which thou hast 
heard from me among many witnesses, 
the same commit thou to faithful men, 
who shall be able to teach others also." 
(II Tim. 2:2.) 

5. Promotion. The work of an Asso- 
ciation is progressive, expanding, almost 
daily confronting new situations, and 
every department is constantly projecting 
many and varied activities. In a certain 
City Association, more than six hundred 
events were scheduled in a single week. 
With so much work to be done, and Secre- 
taries and committeemen willing to do 
it, little or nothing would be done, how- 
ever, without secretarial initiative. If the 
work is to move forward, some man must 
promote it. The Secretary, therefore, 
must be a promoter, a man of vision and 
initiative, seeing the right thing to be 
done, getting it started in the right way, 
and getting the right men to become 
responsible for it and to see it through to 
a successful conclusion. 
_^^ 6, Executive Direction, The work of 
'^^^an Association, however, is much more 



FUNCTIONS 29 

than a succession of new undertakings; 
it has unity, character, and continuity. 
The Association Secretary, therefore, is 
more than a promoter: he is a continu- 
ous executive, hke the captain on the 
bridge or the engineer with his hand on 
the lever, determining the direction of the 
movement, and making its schedules 
effective. As the executive officer of the 
"Board of Directors" or the "Executive 
Committee," the Secretary represents 
the guiding and motive power of the Asso- 
ciation, and is expected to take initiative 
and responsibility for the execution in 
detail of the general policies and plans 
determined by Directors or Executive 
Committee. In all doubtful, or especially 
important, matters, he is expected, of 
course, to take counsel with and secure 
the cooperation of the President of the 
Association, or Chairman of the Execu- 
tive Committee, who share with the 
Secretary the executive function of the 
Association. 

The position of "Chief Executive" is 
the highest office in the gift of the 



30 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

American people; thus, even if the execu- 
tive were the only function of the Secre- 
taryship, the position would be one in 
which men of the highest order of ability 
would find field and scope for their largest 
and best capacities. 

7. Administration. Every Secretary is 
entrusted with money, many with the use 
of valuable property, and not a few with 
the administration of large business and 
financial undertakings, for the prosecu- 
tion of their work. In the City Associa- 
tion Secretaryship, it is almost inevitable 
that a successful Secretary, in the course 
of his experience, will find it necessary to 
take the lead in one or more new building 
enterprises, involving the raising of a 
large amount of money, the planning and 
supervising of the erection of the building, 
and the working out of the new and larger 
business and financial problems necessi- 
tated by the larger work which the new 
building makes possible. It is absolutely 
essential, therefore, that a Secretary 
should have good business sense, sane 
ideas about money, and an accurate 



FUNCTIONS SI 

method of accounting. For lack of these 
elementary principles of business and 
finance, more Secretaries have failed than 
from any other cause. 

8. Education, The Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association is a standard educational 
agency, conducting three main lines of 
educational work, and training its secre- 
tarial and committee force, which is in 
itself an educational process of the first 
importance. The Association has entered 
and is occupying a great and needy field 
in the educational world, placing emphasis 
on evening educational work for employed 
young men; providing scientific physical 
education and athletics on a clean sport 
and character-building basis; and develop- 
ing its system of religious education on 
the plan of trained volunteer leadership. 

The executive officer of such an educa- 
tional organization should not only be a 
man of liberal education, with the student 
habit, but he should be familiar with the 
principles and methods of modern educa- 
tion. 

9. Social Engineering. The Young 



32 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

Men's Christian Association in many- 
cities is the most attractive social center 
for young men and boys in the com- 
munity, conducts many programs of 
social work within the Association build- 
ing, and seeks also to serve socially the 
young men and boys of the entire com- 
munity. The Association, therefore, 
comes into relation with all the social 
conditions, forces, and agencies affecting 
the lives of the young men and boys of 
the community; and in many cities the 
Association Secretary is the best known, 
best informed, and most consulted man in 
the community, on matters of community 
welfare. 

The Association also includes in its 
activities departments and programs of 
social service, educates its membership on 
social problems, and develops and sets 
at work a force of social workers who 
work not only within the Association 
but also with other agencies for com- 
munity betterment. The Secretary of 
such an Association must be not only a 
religious leader but a social engineer. 



FUNCTIONS 33 

10, Community and Problem Diagnosis, 
In order that the Association may plan 
and prosecute its many-sided work with 
reference to the real conditions and needs 
of young men, the Secretary must make 
frequent surveys of his field. New prob- 
lems present themselves constantly, and 
the Secretary must know how to "size 
up the situation." He must be "a good 
diagnostician." 

The writer was in the office of the Gen- 
eral Secretary of a City Association when 
the Boys' Work Secretary entered and 
remarked to the General Secretary, "I 
am up against it." "Well," replied the 
General Secretary, ''it is up to you, and 
you will be up against it every day. " 

The chief was not lacking in sympathy ; 
he was quite willing to help, but he could 
not do his associate's work for him. This 
particular Boys' Work Secretary sur- 
rendered to his problems too easily, and 
soon after dropped out of Association 
work — chiefly because he lacked the 
capacity for diagnosis, with the ability to 
prescribe and apply the proper remedy. 



34 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

11, Vocational Guidance, To guide a 
fit man into his life work is second onlv 
in importance to the winning of a man to 
Christ, especially if the man in question 
be guided into Christian work; then it 
may be vastly more important. 

The scheme of the Association work, 
in which volunteer workers are expected 
to take initiative and responsibility as 
committeemen, develops leadership in 
young men and older boys, challenges 
capacities for unselfish service hitherto 
unsuspected or unutilized, and promotes 
self -disco very. The Association's reli- 
gious work, Bible study, social service, 
educational, and employment depart- 
ments, also provide exceptional oppor- 
tunities for vocational training and guid- 
ance. It is, therefore, the privilege of the 
Association Secretary frequently to coun- 
sel w^ith young men seeking guidance on 
this supremely important subject. 

12, Evangelism. The Young Men's 
Christian Association is not only evangel- 
ical, but evangelistic. To relate young 
men to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord 



FUNCTIONS 35 

has been from the first, and is still, the 
major objective of the Association, which 
seeks to unite young men ''for the exten- 
sion of Christ's Kingdom among young 
men. " The methods of evangeHsm used 
by the Association include whatever Asso- 
ciation experience has shown to be most 
eflfective w^ith young men. In the earlier 
periods of the Association's work, the 
gospel meeting, the evangelistic Bible 
class, and personal work were given spe- 
cial emphasis. Recently, these methods 
have been supplemented by ''the inter- 
view method," which has been adopted 
in many Associations. In some Associa- 
tions, every member, not already a pro- 
fessing or active Christian, is related in 
unhurried personal interview, or series of 
interviews, to some prepared Christian 
business or professional man or Secretary, 
for conference on his life problems, includ- 
ing his relationship to Christ and the 
Church. 

In addition to regular organized meth- 
ods and programs of evangelism, the daily 
casual contact with young men and boys 



36 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

seeking counsel furnishes the Secretary of 
an Association what may be his greatest 
opportunity to win men to the Christian 
hfe. An Association with such a tradition 
and opportunity of evangehsm requires 
for its executive a man with a correspond- 
ing master passion. He need not be a 
professional evangelist, or even an effec- 
tive public speaker, but the compelling 
reason for his choice of the Secretaryship 
as his life work should be that he has 
heard and heeded the Master's call: 
"Come ye after me, and I will make you 
to become a fisher of men. " 

1. Judging from the Paris Basis what is 

the most distinctive or charac- 
teristic thing in the Young Men's 
Christian Association? 

2. Upon what special phase of the Sec- 

retary's leadership does the fruit- 
fulness of the Association depend? 

3. What relation does a friendly per- 

sonality bear to secretarial success? 

4. What is the numerical relation of 

Secretaries to members and what 



FUNCTIONS 37 

bearing does this have on the pos- 
sible work of the Association? 

5. What satisfaction can a man with a 

genius for organization find in the 
Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion? 

6. Upon what quahty in a Secretary will 

the continuity and multiplication 
of his calling depend? 

7. Show the difference between the 

functions of "organization," "pro- 
motion," "executive direction," 
and "administration." 

8. What four lines of educational work 

must a Secretary conduct? 

9. What tasks does a Secretary under- 

take as a social engineer? 

10. Discuss the Secretary's opportunity 

in vocational guidance. 

11. What phase of evangelism will most 

frequently find expression in the 
typical Secretary? 
1£. Which of these twelve functions of 
the Secretaryship can be dispensed 
with? What essential functions 
have been omitted? 



CHAPTER rV 

SPECIALIZATION WTTHIN THE 
SECRETARYSHIP 

The functions of the Association Sec- 
retaryship, combined as they are in one 
office, make this office one of the greatest 
of the great altruistic caUings or profes- 
sions. In whatever t;^^e of Association, 
or department of Association work, any 
particular Secretary may ffiid his field, 
his position is one of executive leadership 
in a cooperative Christian work with 
young men and boys, for the promotion 
of their Christian character and all-round 
efficiency, and for the enlisting of their 
efforts for the extension of Christ's King- 
dom among other young men and boys. 
This is the common denominator of the 
Secretaryship, and is due to the unique 
character, method, and opportunity of 
the Young Men's Christian Association. 

The Secretaryship, however, has vari- 

S8 



SPECIALIZATION 39 

ety as well as unity and, like the pro- 
fessions of law, medicine, and engineer- 
ing, offers not merely one life work oppor- 
tunity, but a choice of several specializa- 
tions within the profession. There is a 
choice of at least fifteen major life work 
opportunities within the Association Sec- 
retaryship, any one of which is an un- 
crowded profession for men of ability 
and adaptation to its requirements. 

The City Association was the original 
type of Association work, and the City 
General Secretaryship the original secre- 
tarial office, called "General" on account 
of its responsibilities being general rather 
than departmental. With the growth of 
the local Association, ''Assistant Secre- 
taries" were first employed; then various 
phases of the Association's work, such as 
Physical, Educational, Boys' Work, Em- 
ployment, Membership, Business, Bible 
Study, and Evangelism, developed into 
departments, and demanded Secretaries 
for their special executive leadership. 

As men of ability and vision specialized 
on the problems, fields, and work of their 



40 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

respective departments, fields have been 
explored, problems have been solved — or 
well started on their way to solution — 
principles have been discovered, new 
sciences of Association work have been 
created, and the office of Department 
Secretary in each of the major Association 
fields or departments has become a "pro- 
fession" as well as a "calling." 

The development of a group of special 
executives within a local Association has 
not robbed the General Secretary of his 
executive function, but has greatly re- 
enforced and extended its application. 
He is no longer the sole Executive Secre- 
tary of the Association, but its chief 
executive. Any one of half a dozen de- 
partments of the work in many Associa- 
tions is now using and serving more young 
men and boys, and more effectively, than 
were used and served by that entire 
Association a few years ago. To initiate 
and coordinate the general strategy of 
such an Association, a much stronger and 
more resourceful man is demanded in the 
office of General Secretary than would 



SPECIALIZATION 41 

have satisfied the situation in the "day of 
small things." 

Specialization within the Secretary- 
ship, however, has developed not only in 
departments of an Association's work but 
in types of Associations. The city has its 
problems, so great in fact that some have 
thought that "the problem of Christian- 
ity is the problem of the city"; and the 
city type of Association has arisen to 
help solve this problem. But there is 
also a "problem of the country," and in 
the rural field, including the villages and 
towns, the majority of the young men 
and boys of the nation as a whole are to 
be found. In response, therefore, to "the 
challenge of the country," the rural or 
County Association Work has been 
evolved, on the County unit or plan of 
organization. The County Work oper- 
ates, as a rule, without equipment, and 
demands the strongest and most versatile 
men as Secretaries, since their work must 
be done with fewer accessories, a smaller 
secretarial staff, more limited resources, 
and under more difficult conditions. 



42 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

Association Work with Boys, beginning 
as a minor, then developing into a major 
department of the City Association, has 
now become a distinct type or division of 
Association work in city, country, school, 
and factory, in and out of Association 
buildings, and calls for as many kinds of 
specialization within the Association Boys' 
Work Secretaryship as there are special 
fields, problems, or conditions in boy 
life. 

Other types of Association work with 
large and growing groups of Associations 
have been developed, demanding Secre- 
taries with special interest and adapta- 
tion, to meet the needs of young men in 
college and university life, in railroad 
service, in the great industrial fields, in 
the army and navy, and among colored 
men. Several hundred Secretaries also 
specialize on the general or supervisory as 
distinguished from the local work of the 
Associations, in the service of State organ- 
izations, the Canadian National Council, 
and the International Committee, in its 
home and foreign departments. 



SPECIALIZATION 43 

A group of these Secretaries, in the 
Secretarial Bureau of the International 
Committee, and others connected with 
the Association Colleges and Association 
Summer Schools, are specializing on the 
recruiting and training of men for the 
Association Secretaryship. 

Others specialize on editorial work, 
publication, publicity, financial and mem- 
bership campaigns, the planning, con- 
struction, and equipment of Association 
buildings, business efficiency, business 
administration, Bible study and evangel- 
ism, and other tasks in which their special 
qualifications or interests enable them to 
render their greatest service to young men 
and boys, or to the upbuilding, develop- 
ment, and efficiency of the Association 
movement in city or country, in intensive 
or extensive work, or upon its home or 
foreign fields. 

The chapter on specialization within 
the Association Secretaryship is not com- 
plete, and cannot now be completed. 
New departments of the Association 
work will be developed; new fields will 



44 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

open to the Association Movement; and 
new tasks will be undertaken, as the 
Association moves forward in the ful- 
filling of its ever expanding mission. 

These unsolved problems, unoccupied 
fields, and unassumed tasks invite men 
of vision, the pioneer spirit, and a 
genius for original work. To such a man 
will be given the opportunity for crea- 
tive work and the reward of great achieve- 
ment in the service of "his own genera- 
tion by the will of God," in the exten- 
sion of the Kingdom of Christ among 
young men and boys throughout the 
world. 



1. In what respect are all Secretaries at 

work on the same task.^^ 

2. Show how the Secretaryship is open 

to a variety of types of men. 

3. What was the original type of Secre- 

taryship? 

4. Of "profession" and "calling" which 

do you consider the more appropri- 
ate term, and why? 



SPECIALIZATION 45 

5. How far has the spHttIng of the 

secretarial function robbed the 
General Secretary of his calling? 

6. Make two lists, one of the types of 

departmental Secretaries, and one 
of the types of general Secretaries, 
such as city and rural. How many 
types in all? 

7. Describe the type of Secretary who 

can work without equipment. 
What is his chief asset? 

8. Why do men consider the Boys' Work 

Secretaryship as having a great 
future? 

9. Name some special developments in 

the Secretaryship. 
10. How much further will specialization 
within the Secretaryship proceed? 



CHAPTER V 
RELATIONS OF THE SECRETARYSfflP 

Clearly to recognize and faithfully to 
observe relationships are the marks of a 
gentleman, a statesman, and a Christian. 
They are also among the attributes of a 
successful Association Secretary. The 
relationships of the Association Secretary- 
ship are an outgrowth and recognition of 
principles of the Association and of reli- 
gious leadership in Association and com- 
munity. 

1, The Principle of the Association 
Brotherhood. ''The locusts have no king, 
yet go they forth all of them by bands." 
In the Association Movement we have a 
modern instance of the phenomenon of 
organization without authority, which 
attracted the attention of "the wise man" 
so many years ago. When, in 1854, the 
individual Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciations in North America affiliated in 

46 



RELATIONS 47 

International Convention and Commit- 
tee, and when in 1866 they began the 
creation of State Associations and Com- 
mittees, they yielded nothing of their 
independence or local autonomy to these 
so-called "supervisory agencies." 

And yet, these International and State 
organizations, and, later, the National 
Council of the Canadian Associations, 
have become remarkably strong and influ- 
ential, in fact indispensable to the effi- 
ciency, development, and extension of the 
local Associations. 

These great supervisory agencies of the 
Association movement, however, are the 
servants, not the masters, of the local 
Associations: They exercise ''supervi- 
sion without authority" and provide ex- 
perts and promoters for various types and 
departments of the work of the Associa- 
tions. They also serve as a clearing-house 
of ideas and representative agencies for 
the carrying forward of important projects 
for the increased efficiency of the Associa- 
tions, their missionary extension, and their 
work upon their home and foreign fields. 



48 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

The fundamental principle of the Asso- 
ciation brotherhood is cooperation, the 
strong bearing the burdens of the weak, 
"all for each and each for all." The 
supervisory agencies have no "rights" in 
the local Associations except by invita- 
tion and approval, and no special "priv- 
ileges" except the privilege of service. 
The relationships, therefore, between the 
local and the State and International 
Secretaries, are those of counsel, coopera- 
tion, and community of interest, 

2. The Principle of the Association. 
The Association employs the Secretary; 
the Secretary builds the Association; the 
Association directors, members, and com- 
mitteemen are the Association. No Asso- 
ciation can give its Secretary a "power 
of attorney" to do the work of the Asso- 
ciation, for in doing this it would commit 
Association suicide. The fundamental 
principle of the Association is that the 
responsibility for the work of the Asso- 
ciation rests with the members. The re- 
lationships of the Association Secretary- 
ship to the Association members, direc- 



RELATIONS 49 

tors, and committeemen, therefore, are 
those of a promoter, organizer, leader, 
and executive. 

Here we have a remarkable balance of 
power between the Association "layman" 
and "'professional," with the layman in 
the place of authority and the professional 
in the place of initiative, influence, and 
leadership, each dependent on the other. 
The result is the Young Men's Christian 
Association, increasingly effective and in- 
creasingly attractive to both layman and 
professional. 

3, The Principle of the Staff, In every 
efficient athletic team there is leadership, 
discipline, coaching, specialization, sub- 
ordination of excessive individualism to 
the rule or plan of the game, and the 
spirit of sacrifice when the other fellow is 
in the place of opportunity. This prin- 
ciple of the team is the principle of the 
secretarial staff of an Association. The 
relationships, therefore, of the members 
of an Association staff to each other are 
those of mutual appreciation, loyalty, co-^ 
ordination, and fellowship in service. 



no ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

^. The Principle of Leadership, To be 
a leader in the Association is greater than 
to be an executive, for an executive may 
be mechanical, but an Association leader 
must win the personal loyalty and the 
spiritual confidence of the men who fol- 
low him. To do this, he must have char- 
acter, sincerity, unselfishness, superior 
ability, breadth of view, insight, judg- 
ment, initiative, and a forward look. 
Possessing these elements of leadership, 
and having recognition as a leader, the 
relationships of the Secretary to the com- 
mitteemen, officers, and staff of the Asso- 
ciation are those of friendship, consider- 
ation, consultation, recognition, and sup- 
port, 

A great leader frequently will not ap- 
pear to be leading, so successful is he in 
putting others forward and securing for 
them recognition and support. He is 
working for permanent results, for the 
upbuilding of the Association by develop- 
ing efficiency and leadership in its mem- 
bers. He may seem to decrease, but it is 
in order that they may increase and the 



RELATIONS 51 

time will come when He that "seeth in 
secret" will reward him "openly." 

5, Relationships with Church and Com- 
munity Leaders, The great principle 
enunciated in the "Portland Test" of 
active membership in the Associations is 
not the definition of what constitutes an 
"evangelical" church, but the subordina- 
tion of the Association to the Church. 
The Association is constitutionally and 
fundamentally loyal to the Church. Evi- 
dently this loyalty should express itself 
not merely in definition, but in service. 
The relationship, therefore, of the As- 
sociation Secretary to the churches of his 
community should be that of a servant. 
This, as a rule, is true to Association 
practice and the principle is being increas- 
ingly worked out in programs of co- 
operative work in which the Association 
Secretaries help Church, Sunday school 
and Young People's Society to solve 
the problems of their own young men 
and boys in their own organization and 
work. 

The Association, in the working out of 



52 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

such a program, becomes the laboratory 
of the Church, and the results of experi- 
mentation and achievement by Associa- 
tion specialists in work with young men 
and boys become the property of the 
Church, so far as it can appropriate them. 
A similar relationship exists between the 
Association Secretary and the community 
leaders, particularly in the physical, ath- 
letic, social, and educational work of the 
Associations. The development of the 
playground system and of evening educa- 
tional classes, now largely conducted un- 
der community auspices, as a result of the 
pioneering and promotion of Association 
Secretaries, illustrates the practical out- 
working of this principle of community 
service in the relationship of the Secre- 
tary to the leaders of the community. 

6. The Secretary's Personal Religious 
Life. The personal religious life of the 
Secretary has a most important bearing 
on the entire range of his relationships. 
The love that "envieth not, seeketh not 
its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh 
no evil, suflereth long and is kind" makes 



RELATIONS 53 

all relationships easy. The man who has 
this "most excellent way" of dealing with 
others is "a comfortable man to work 
with." 

This brings us to the Secretary's per- 
sonal relationship to Jesus Christ. Un- 
less the Secretary is a Christian of reality, 
these relationships of the Secretaryship 
will hopelessly involve him. He needs 
the spirit of Christ to become a leader of 
men, as much as he needs the method of 
Christ to become a fisher of men. This is 
not a luxury, but a necessity, otherwise we 
have a "religious leader" without either 
religion or a following. Does this not ex- 
plain many failures in the Secretaryship? 

1. Discuss the unique characteristic of 

supervision of State and Inter- 
national Secretaries. Which pre- 
dominate, good or bad features, 
and why.'^ 

2. How can eflFective supervision be 

exercised with no other relation- 
ships than "counsel, cooperation, 
and community of interest ".^^ 



54 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

3. Discuss the relation of the Secretary 

and of the members to the work 
of the Association and to each other. 

4. What quahties of character quaUfy 

a man for Association leadership? 

5. What relationships within the Asso- 

ciation grow out of these qualities 
in the leader? 

6. W^hat is the relation of the Associa- 

tion to the Church? 

7. To what extent is the preservation of 

these relationships dependent upon 
the Secretary? Upon the minis- 
ter? 

8. Should a Secretary help to develop 

boys' work in a church? 

9. How far should a Secretary go in 

giving public night schools, play- 
grounds and other community wel- 
fare projects the benefit of Asso- 
ciation experience and his personal 
cooperation? 
10. Notice that point about a religious 
leader without either religion or a 
following. What relationship will 
secure both these essentials? 



CHAPTER VI 
STATUS OF THE SECRETARYSHIP 

Has the Association Secretaryship an 
ascertainable status, or ground for its 
existence, for the assurance of the man 
who may contemplate his commitment 
to it as a life calling? Thirty-five years 
ago, the Secretaryship was largely an 
idea, and the man who entered it at that 
time was obliged to claim by faith many 
things that men who enter the Secretary- 
ship today can note and appraise as 
evidences of the faith of their predeces- 
sors, and of the greatness of the idea by 
which they were attracted. The Secre- 
taryship of today rests on an historic 
basis and the idea is reenforced by a 
permanent deposit of experience. 

1. The history of the Young Men's 
Christian Association, its well-known 
and tested principles, its record of ac- 
complishment in many fields of effort, its 

55 



56 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

phenomenal growth, and the demand for 
its extension throughout the world — 
these give the Association Secretaryship 
a standing in the court of public opinion. 
Wherever the Young Men's Christian 
Association is mentioned today, the Sec- 
retaryship is understood to be an indis- 
pensable part of the enterprise, necessary 
to its operations, as the engineer is essen- 
tial to the running of the engine, and the 
Christian minister to the upbuilding of 
the church. 

One has but to reflect on the place of 
the Young Men's Christian Association 
in modern Christian civilization to ap- 
preciate the significance of the historic 
status of the Secretaryship. 

2. The already great and steadily in- 
creasing investment in Association equip- 
ment in North America (now aggregating 
$100,000,000) is an evidence of the public 
confidence in the Secretaryship, as well as 
a trust committed to its keeping for the 
effective prosecution of the work for 
which the equipment has been provided. 

Business men would not have given 



STATUS 57 

largely to Association work if it had been 
conducted on a purely voluntary basis. 
The Secretaryship gave promise of stabil- 
ity and assurance of specialization in ad- 
ministration. Association buildings every- 
where testify to the status of the Secre- 
taryship in the judgment, generosity, and 
confidence of business men. 

3. The recognition of the Association 
by the Church as an ally gives to the 
Secretaryship a status similar to that of 
the Christian ministry, while at the same 
time the confidence of the general public 
in the Association as a practical force in 
the social and economic life of young 
men and boys gives it a place of influence 
in the community as a social service 
agency. 

4. The Secretaryship has a status also 
with the great railroad and industrial 
corporations and with the United States 
Government in the Army and Navy and 
on the Canal Zone, as an indispensable 
welfare agency and a promoter of co- 
operative relations between labor and 
capital, employer and employe. The 



58 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

fact that the entire time of more than five 
hundred Secretaries (1916) is given to 
Association work with raihoad, industrial, 
and government employes, made possible 
by corporation and government support, 
gives emphasis to this corporation and 
governmental recognition. 

5. The popularity of the Association 
with young men and boys and the friendly 
way in which it enters into their recrea- 
tional, athletic, vocational, and religious 
life and enlists them in the prosecution 
of its multiform activities give to the 
Secretaryship a status of community of 
interest with multitudes of men and boys, 
unreached by other religious, social, and 
educational agencies. 

6. The demonstration of the signifi- 
cance of the Association Secretaryship in 
the lives and work of great Secretaries, 
known on several continents, has given 
the Secretaryship a status in the record 
of human achievement among the great 
altruistic callings. One of America's 
great business and financial leaders re- 
turning from an extended trip to a dis- 



STATUS 59 

tant part of the country, said recently, 
"I met all their great men, railroad men, 
bankers, business men, professional men, 
but no men impressed me more than the 
five leading Association Secretaries. There 
are no stronger men out there and they 
are looked up to as leaders in the larger 
aflPairs of that section of the country." 

The life service of such men as McBur- 
ney, Weidensall, Morse, Budge, See, 
Shurtleflf, Sinclair, Messer, Mott, and 
many others still living and leading in 
the Association Movement has given a 
status to and set a standard for the Sec- 
retaryship, that have lifted it immeasur- 
ably above the plane of the commonplace 
and have made the Associations and the 
community forever intolerant of medi- 
ocrity in the Secretaryship. 

7. The consideration of the status of 
the Secretaryship would not be complete 
without reference to its honorable and 
useful place on the foreign mission field 
among the great missionary agencies of 
the Church. The late Professor Hender- 
son, then of the Department of Sociology 



60 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

of the University of Chicago, returning 
from a tour of the world, said in pubhc 
address that the best expression of social 
service that he had seen anywhere, was 
the regular work of the Young Men's 
Christian Associations on the foreign field. 
The Association Foreign Work, in con- 
centrating on national problems, and on 
the developing of typical Association 
work in the political and commercial 
capitals and the university centers of the 
non-Christian and the Latin American 
world, in specializing on the most influ- 
ential and hitherto comparatively inac- 
cessible classes, and in placing the em- 
phasis on native leadership, both volun- 
teer and secretarial, has won a status and 
an influence entirely out of proportion 
to the number of its se'^^-etarial staff. 

1. Show the difference between the 

chances in the Secretaryship as 
a life work today and making 
the same choice thirty-five years 
ago. 

2. To what does the Association owe 



STATUS 61 

its standing in the court of public 
opinion? 

3. What relation has the large Associa- 

tion equipment to the status of 
the Secretaryship? 

4. What effect does the Association's 

recognition as a church agency 
and as a social service agency have 
on the status of the Secretaryship? 

5. What has the Association done to 

deserve its standing with large 
employers? 

6. How has the Association employed 

officer demonstrated his community 
of interest with all sorts of young 
men and boys, and what bearing 
does this have on the status of the 
Secretaryship? 

7. What bearing has the personality of 

our leading Secretaries had upon 
the Association profession or call- 
ing? 

8. Discuss the relation of our foreign 

work to the regard in which Asso- 
ciation leadership is held. 



CHAPTER VII 

COMPENSATIONS OF THE SECRE- 
TARYSHIP 

"What shall we have therefore?" is an 
uisistent question, even with unselfish 
men. It pressed for an answer even with 
the men who were considered good enough 
to be invited by Jesus to join him in the 
organization and direction of the initial 
impact of Christianity on the world. 

Following the Master's example, we 
will not evade this question; but, in 
seeking to answer it, we will, like him also, 
put the more important considerations 
first. Jesus assumed and taught that 
the man who sought the higher things in 
life and service would insure the second- 
ary things to the limit of his need; but 
that the man who put the lower things 
first would lose the higher. The funda- 
mental principle is, ''your heavenly Fa- 
ther knoweth that ye have need of these 



COMPENSATIONS 63 

things," and "the laborer is worthy of 
his hire." 

The important thing was, and is, that 
the man should fit his calling, that he 
should choose the work in which he would 
find and do the will of God for his life. 
Given the right man in the right place, 
working with God, and the '*hire," or 
compensation, is sure. What is the 
' ' hire ' ' of the Secretaryship ? Here again, 
as in considering the functions of the 
Secretaryship, we are helped by observing 
the nature and opportunity of the Asso- 
ciation work, of which the Secretary is 
the executive. 

1. It is a Christian work and, as such, 
is included in the original assurance of 
Christ that ''he that reapeth receiveth 
wages and gathereth fruit unto life eter- 
nal." 

Re-read the record of the incident as 
given in John 4 : 1-36, and note the con- 
ditions under which these words were 
spoken. Consider the Master, spent, 
hungry, but forgetting everything in the 
joy of "reaping," illustrating in his own 



64 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

experience the *' wages" he promised the 
men who would reap with him in his 
''harvest." Among the high places in 
human experience, this is one of the very 
highest. Can there be anything greater 
or more satisfying than the exaltation of 
spirit, with its sense of value and achieve- 
ment, of which Jesus was conscious when 
he invited these comparatively inexpe- 
rienced men to give themselves wholly to 
Christian work? There was something 
closely approximating this when, as re- 
corded in Luke 10 : 17-24, ''the seventy 
returned again with joy." They were 
receiving the "wages" of their first great 
adventure in Christian w^ork, and "in 
that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit," and 
they had a double wage, their own ex- 
perience of joy and the consciousness of 
having rejoiced the heart of the Master. 

But we must not lose sight of that other 
compensation promised by Christ, in ad- 
dition to the joy, or present satisfaction 
in doing Christian w^ork, namely, that 
the reaper would achieve a "permanent 
result, would gather "fruit unto life 



COMPENSATIONS 65 

eternal/^ Christian work deals with 
personahty and character, imperishable 
substances, and it brings to bear upon 
them the transforming and vitalizing 
forces of the Gospel. The joy of the 
achievement, satisfying as that may be, 
is not so important as the assurance that 
one has accomplished something per- 
manent, as well as beneficent. 

2. It is a work of many friendships. 
The man with a million dollars, or a 
great reputation, and no friends, is poorer 
than the man who has friends, but is 
living in poverty and obscurity. Friend- 
ship is a compensation in itseK, and is 
well worth estimating when one is mak- 
ing his choice of a life work. 

A college man, who a short time before 
had given up an assured future in engi- 
neering to make a trial of the Association 
Secretaryship, reported it as a discovery 
that "in Association work, results are 
obtained not at the expense of others, 
but simply by helping others." 

3. It is a work of rich and broad fellow- 
ships. Fellowship in service is a stronger 



66 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

and richer experience than friendship, 
for it is friendship shot through with 
service and glorified by sacrifice. In the 
Association work, a Secretary has fellow- 
ship with the choicest spirits, the strong- 
est and most unselfish personalities of the 
community, and this is one of the com- 
pensations of his office. The strongest 
business and professional men, ministers 
and laymen, are deeply interested in the 
well-being of young men and boys and 
greatly appreciate the work of the Asso- 
ciation and the Association Secretary, in 
their behalf. 

If a Secretary proves himself worthy of 
their confidence, they will support him 
to the limit. In fact, the theory of the 
Association is that the work is theirs 
rather than his. That is what the word 
"Association" means, and if the Secre- 
tary acts on this principle, these men will 
take initiative and responsibility in the 
work of the Association, and feel that the 
Secretary has placed them under obliga- 
tion in making such a work possible. 
They regard him as the honored and 



COMPENSATIONS 67 

trusted leader of a community movement, 
who could probably have made a fortune 
in business or a name in professional or 
political life, if he had chosen to do so, 
but who has consecrated his talents to 
higher uses. 

Such fellowship in service is a mighty 
factor in a Secretary's life, and a stim- 
ulus to help him to live and work at his 
best. 

4. It is a work that offers almost un- 
limited opportunity for achievement. The 
Association is organized for work rather 
than for discussion, and the Hon. John 
Wanamaker says that it ''has a patent on 
opportunity." 

The Secretary is the builder and execu- 
tive of the Association, as Kitchener and 
Joffre were the builders and the execu- 
tives of armies. The work of one man is 
limited; but, if that man is an organizer 
and builds and works with and through an 
Association, the Association can do any- 
thing that the one man can plan for it and 
persuade it to undertake. 

There is a great joy in achievement. 



68 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

Like friendship, it is a compensation in 
itseK. "The reward of work is more 
work," and the man of deeds, rather 
than dreams, "rejoices hke a strong man 
to run a race," in overcoming the seem- 
ingly insurmoimtable and achieving the 
hitherto impossible. This is life in its 
fullness and the greatest of its satisfac- 
tions. 

The Association is "just getting its 
stride, " and no man has yet been able to 
carry it to the limit of its possibilities. 
It is a "world power," and, as such, is 
laying the foundations of a new social 
and religious order, not only in North 
America, but in the Orient, the Levant, 
Latin America, and Europe. If a man has 
a capacity for empire building, the Asso- 
ciation work would interest him, and, 
after interesting, it would hold him, for 
he would never be conscious of a finished 
task. 

5. Concerning salaries: of the 4,401 
Secretaries and Assistants in Association 
work January 1, 1916, the salaries were 
as follows: 



COMPENSATIONS 69 

Average for all Secretaries and Assistants . . $1,381 
Group A. 502, or 1 1 per cent, from $180 to 



Averaged $510 

Group B. 1,311, or30percent,from $600to$l,200 
Averaged $900 

Group C. 1 ,289, or 29 per cent, from $1,200 to $1,500 
Averaged $1,300 

Group D. 1,041, or 24 per cent, from $1,500 to $2,500 
Averaged $1,952 

Group E. 258, or 6 per cent, from $2,500 to $9,000 

Averaged $3,083 

Groups A and B are composed chiefly 
of first and second year Assistants in 
local Associations, of whom there were 
1,501 in 1916. 

In Group C are the younger Secretaries 
in their first fields, or first, second and 
third years in responsible positions as 
department executives. 

Groups D and E are the goals at which 
every young Secretary expects to arrive, 
and to which 30 per cent of the men in 
Association service for two or more years 
have already attained. 

1. Is it proper to inquire as to the com- 
pensation of the Secretaryship be- 



70 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

fore committing oneseK to this call- 
ing? 

2. In choosing their life work, how 

many men seek a calling in which 
they can create Christian char- 
acter in others? Are those who so 
choose ill advised? Defend your 
opinion. 

3. To what extent is the opportunity 

of making friends an attractive 
feature of a calling? 

4. Into what sort of fellowship does the 

Secretaryship bring one? 

5. What effect does this sort of fellow- 

ship have on a man's efficiency? 

6. Does Association work offer a man a 

chance to have a hand in the doing 
of big things? How? 

7. What limits of achievement are found 

in the Secretaryship? 

8. Have you ever seen a man with more 

talent than he could use as a Sec- 
retary? 

9. With what other callings does the 

Secretaryship compare in the mat- 
ter of salary? 



COMPENSATIONS 71 

10. How much income does an educated 

man need? 

11. Does the Secretaryship pay "a liv- 

ing wage" for capable and educated 
men? 



CHAPTER VIII 

PREPARATION FOR THE SECRETARY- 
SHIP 

The Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion offers to its employed executives, 
who are quaUfied and prepared, a life 
work of achievement, usefulness, and 
compensation. 

I Here is a great organization — Christian, 
social, athletic, educational — with a world 
outlook and world recognition. It con- 
tinues to grow in extent and content, 
since it is founded on the fundamental 
needs and undeveloped possibilities of 
young men and boys. It is progressive 
and constructive, is highly specialized, 
and is calling for permanent executives. 

The functions of the executive office 
in the Association are the marks and to- 
kens of a great profession, and call, or 
wait, for the man of corresponding ca- 
pacity and versatility. If this man is 

72 



PREPARATION 73 

looking for a life career in the Secretary- 
ship, special preparation is required. 

First in importance, however, is the 
discovery of the man who fits the pro- 
fession, and the discovery by that man of 
the Secretaryship as the profession in 
which he can probably render his greatest 
life service and give fullest expression to 
his major or most characteristic qualifica- 
tions. 

Let us therefore consider: 

1. Who Should be Encouraged to 
Prepare for the Secretaryship.^ 

Association leaders are in agreement 
that the candidate for the Secretaryship 
should have the following qualifications: 

a. Good health and an attractive per- 
sonality. 

b. Ability to make and hold friends, 
ability to cooperate with others, 
and freedom from marked eccen- 
tricities in habit, manner, and ap- 
pearance. 

e. Sound business sense and good 
judgment, with executive ability, 
initiative, and tact. 



74 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

d. A liberal education, preferably a 
college course, or its equivalent, 
with willingness to take whatever 
special vocational training and ex- 
perience may be necessary for ex- 
ecutive leadership in the general or 
departmental work of the Secre- 
taryship on which he may plan to 
specialize. 

e. Loyal membership in an evangelical 
church, with strong Christian char- 
acter and convictions, religious lead- 
ership, a sacrificial purpose, and 
ability to help young men and boys 
religiously. 

f. Freedom from the least suggestion 
of moral delinquency, such as any 
form of self-indulgence, sex weak- 
ness, or unreliability in financial 
matters. It is absolutely essential 
that an Association leader, because 
of his close relations with boys and 
young men, should be morally 
above reproach. 

2. Why Prepare for the Secretary- 
ship? 



PREPARATION 75 

To build a true and abiding type of 
Association work, the plan must be true 
to the perspective of Association history; 
the foundation must be laid in tested 
Association principles, and the builder 
must be inspired and sustained by the 
genuine Association spirit. 

The modern City Association is the 
survival of the fittest of a multitude of 
experiments, failures, and partial suc- 
cesses, and the product of specialization 
in more than a thousand cities. The type 
of Association work which was fairly 
successful fifteen years ago is obsolete to- 
day. The Associations are a chain of 
affiliated laboratories, whose experiments, 
resulting in discoveries, have been in- 
corporated and perpetuated in the ap- 
proved plans, efficient organization, and 
successful methods of the modern achiev- 
ing Association. The executive officer of 
a modern Association, therefore, must 
have the knowledge and skill of a techni- 
cal expert, which can be acquired only 
by special study, training, and experi- 
ence. 



76 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

To insure a life career in any calling, 
one needs to take his profession seriously; 
and to assume that one can safely under- 
take the executive leadership of a modern 
Association without special preparation 
is to underestimate the Association and 
practically to make provision for a brief 
and disappointing experience. 

From the point of view of the Associa- 
tion, the interests at stake have now be- 
come too important to justify their com- 
mitment to uninformed, untrained, or 
inexperienced leadership. The man of 
ability, without preparation, would doubt- 
less succeed in building something — ^but 
that something might only slightly re- 
semble, or might even caricature, the 
Young Men's Christian Association. 

To prepare men for and in the Secre- 
taryship, the Association Movement has 
developed a comprehensive training pro- 
gram, including thoroughgoing profes- 
sional school preparation. It provides 
also, in the Assistant Secretaryship, op- 
portimity for acquiring experience before 
assuming the responsibility of an execu- 



PREPARATION 77 

tive position, or before entering upon a 
course of professional training for the 
Secretaryship as a Hfe work. 

3. How Prepare for the Secre- 
taryship? 

There are three approved training 
agencies of the Young Men's Christian 
Association and one apprenticeship op- 
portunity in preparation for the Secre- 
taryship : 

a. The Association Professional Col- 
leges. 

b. The Association Summer Schools. 

c. The Association Training Centers 
established in leading Associations. 

d. The Assistant Secretaryship in some 
Associations. 

a. The Association Professional Col- 
leges 

The standard professional training for 
the Association Secretaryship, expressed 
in resolutions of representative Associa- 
tion Conventions and Conferences, is that 
afforded by the two Association Colleges 
located at Springfield, Mass., and Chica- 
go, 111. Here in an orderly and compre- 



78 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

hensive way the entrant upon the Asso- 
ciation Secretaryship may lay a broad 
foundation for his professional career. 
Each college has a modern equipment 
with a strong faculty and is conducted 
in accordance with the best ideas and 
progressive methods of modem educa- 
tion. 

While there are certain common ele- 
ments in their curricula, yet each college 
has individuality, developed through its 
history, traditions, the personality of its 
faculty, its student body, and the influ- 
ence of its alumni. 

The Springfield College offers a four- 
year course combining cultural with voca- 
tional preparation. Graduates of regular 
academic colleges are given credit for 
work done, by which the course may be 
completed in two years. 

The Chicago College, in addition to 
its three-year regular course, is placing 
emphasis on its two-year graduate course 
and is also so affiliated with some of the 
Middle West academic colleges and uni- 
versities as to make possible a five-year 



PREPARATION 79 

coordinated course leading to both "aca- 
demic and professional degrees. 

Both colleges enrol only students who 
have completed at least high school 
courses. 

A candidate for the Secretaryship 
should fully inform himself as to the 
courses of instruction offered by the Asso- 
ciation Colleges, and advise with his 
State Recruiting Committee, the Secre- 
tarial Bureau of the International Com- 
mittee, or a representative of an Asso- 
ciation College as to his personal prob- 
lems. 

b. The Association Summer Schools 

The oldest of these schools is located at 
Lake Geneva, Wis., and was started in 
1884. The largest is the Eastern Associa- 
tion School at Silver Bay, on Lake 
George, N. Y. Other schools are con- 
ducted at Black Mountain, N. C, Estes 
Park, Colo., Lake Couchiching, Ont., 
Arundel, Md., Asilomar, Cal., and Sea- 
beck, Wash. The aggregate annual enrol- 
ment exceeds 1,200 men. 

The Summer School teachers are, for 



80 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

the most part. Association leaders and 
Secretaries — men who are dealing with 
the actual problems of work with young 
men and boys in their respective fields. 
The instruction is, therefore, of high 
practical value. 

The student body is composed mainly 
of three groups of men: younger Secre- 
taries and assistants, young men who 
desire to investigate the Association vo- 
cation, and older Secretaries . who come 
for advanced work and to keep in touch 
with the progress of the Association 
Movement. The courses leading to a 
certificate require three summers' attend- 
ance of two weeks or four weeks each for 
completion. 

The Summer Schools also offer an un- 
usual opportunity to become acquainted 
with Association leaders and with the 
Association spirit. Probably the greatest 
value of these Summer Schools is not 
in the classroom work, helpful and 
stimulating as that is, but in the in- 
spiration that comes from contact and 
fellowship with the Association leaders. 



PREPARATION 81 

The training afforded in the Summer 
Schools is regarded as secondary to that 
provided by the Association Colleges and 
should stimulate and prepare men to 
secure for themselves a standard course 
of professional training whenever this is 
possible. 

c. The Association Training Centers 

Some forty of the leading American 
and Canadian Associations have devel- 
oped a local program of class instruction, 
systematic coaching, and varied experi- 
ence for their assistants and younger 
Secretaries. It is to be expected that 
many beginners in the work will find in 
these Training Centers the stimulus to 
avail themselves of the more fundamental 
and technical instruction offered by the 
Association Colleges. 

This Training Center Movement paral- 
lels within the Young Men's Christian 
Association the modern plan of training 
executives on the apprenticeship principle 
and understudy plan, extensively used by 
leading American transportation, man- 
ufacturing, and commercial corporations 



82 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

— such as the Pennsylvania Railroad, 
Western Electric Company, and National 
City Bank. 

The Training Center period extends 
over two years. Associations conducting 
such work are referred to as Training 
Centers, and have formed a federation 
for the standardizing, progressive develop- 
ment, and extension of their work. 

d. The Assistant Secretaryship 

The extraordinarily rapid growth of 
the Young Men's Christian Association 
Movement has in many cases made neces- 
sary the filling of the ranks of the Assist- 
ant Secretaryship with the most available 
men, the majority of whom are employed 
for specific tasks, without special ref- 
erence to their possession of the distinc- 
tive qualifications for a life work in the 
Secretaryship. 

With this in mind, the fact that many 
men have found the Assistant Secretary- 
ship an open door to the Secretaryship 
constitutes both a menace and a promise 
for the future leadership of the Associa- 
tion Movement, 



PREPARATION 83 

Standard Associations — that is, those 
Associations with a modern, well-devel- 
oped type of work — are now discouraged 
from filling any assistant positions on 
their staffs with men who do not give 
promise of real secretarial leadership, or 
who are not looking forward to a life 
work in the Secretaryship; and they are 
urged to cooperate in filling such positions 
with men of demonstrated business abil- 
ity and experience, or with college grad- 
uates possessing the fundamental quali- 
fications for the Secretaryship. They 
are also advised to encourage and aid 
assistants of promise to secure a course of 
professional training before assuming the 
responsibilities of an executive position in 
the Secretaryship. 

1. What facts about the Association 

justify preparation for the Secre- 
taryship? 

2. What bearing has each of the follow- 

ing qualities upon fitness for the 
Secretaryship? 
a. Health 



84 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

b. Ability to cooperate with 

others 

c. Business sense 

d. Education 

e. Religious leadership 

f . Fine moral character 

3. Show wherein Association work is suf- 

ficiently technical to require special 
preparation for the Secretaryship. 

4. Why are Association directors justi- 

fied in preferring trained executives 
for Association positions? 

5. How much and what sort of training 

should these executives have? 

6. Discuss the Association professional 

college as a training agency. 

7. What sort of secretarial training can 

be secured in Association Summer 
Schools? 

8. Where are the leading Association 

Summer Schools? 

9. To what extent can a Training Center 

fit a man for executive leadership? 
10. Under what circumstances would you 
adVise men entering the Secretary- 
ship to take an assistant's position? 



CHAPTER IX 
FUTUEE OF THE SECRETARYSHIP 

One does not need to be a prophet, 
only an observer, to predict a future for 
the Association Secretaryship. The As- 
sociation is sound in principle, unique 
in method, adaptable in character, uni- 
versal in application, and practically im- 
limited in its field. 

The future of the Secretaryship depends 
on the Secretary, The Secretaryship has 
but one serious limitation, and that is in 
the man who attempts it. Some men 
have no future. If these men become 
Secretaries, of course there is no future 
for the Secretaryship. But, where the 
call of the Secretaryship is heard by the 
men who fit the calling, the Secretaryship 
of the future will be a place of apostolic 
opportunity. 

The future of the Secretaryship will he 
in the direction of standardization and 

85 



86 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

efficiency. In the ten years, 1906-1916, 
more than one thousand major secretarial 
positions, paying salaries of $1,200 or 
more, were vacated by men leaving the 
Association work. The majority of these 
men left the Secretaryship because the 
rising standards and intensive develop- 
ment of the Association work created or 
accentuated requirements in leadership 
and administration, for which they were 
not equal. This is not a symptom of 
weakness, but an evidence of strength in 
the Association, and a challenge to the 
strongest type of men to undertake a 
work which average men have found to 
be impossible. 

The future of the Secretaryship will be 
in the direction of its missionary outreach. 
The greater part of the field for Associa- 
tion work is still unoccupied. 

1. In North America 

The City Associations, now organized in 
less than seven hundred cities, should be 
extended into four hundred of the more 
than six hundred "unoccupied" cities; 
and in fifty Association cities of more 



FUTURE 87 

than 100,000 population, one hundred 
''Branch" Associations should be organ- 
ized, with buildings and Secretaries, in 
the next ten years. 

The County Association Work, operating 
in the rural, town, and village field, and 
now being carried on in only about one 
hundred counties, should be extended 
into at least five hundred counties in the 
next ten years. There are about three 
thousand counties in the United States 
and Canada, of which at least fifteen 
hundred are " organizable " for the Asso- 
ciation work, each with one or more Asso- 
ciation County Secretaries. 

The Boys' Work Division of the City 
Associations, with its specialization in 
"Building," "High School" and "Com- 
munity" Work, and employing about 
500 Boys' Work Secretaries, and the 
Industrial Associations, now employing 
three hundred Secretaries, should treble 
their work and secretarial staffs in ten 
years. Even then, they would not have 
occupied one-half of the fields that are 
ripe for organization. 



88 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

2. On the Foreign Field 

The North American Associations have 
responded to the call of the young men of 
Asia and of Latin America by sending 
out and supporting on the Association 
foreign field two hundred missionary 
Secretaries. This work will be continued 
and extended, perhaps doubled in the next 
ten years. 

The work carried on also by the North 
American Associations through their hun- 
dreds of Secretaries in the training camps, 
on the battle-fields, and in the prison 
camps of Europe and "East of Suez" is 
another expression of the Association's 
spirit of world brotherhood and outreach. 
In this War Work of the American Asso- 
ciations, Christ is being interpreted to 
millions of young men in their hour of 
greatest need, in terms of service and of 
friendship — a language which all can 
understand. The response will be seen 
in the period of reconstruction after the 
war, as a factor to be reckoned with in 
the future of the Association movement 
and of the Secretaryship. 



FUTUEE 89 

The world vision and the spirit of sacri- 
fice are a part of the content of the idea 
of the Association Secretaryship, and men 
of the heroic type will increasingly press 
into the Secretaryship, as they recognize 
that the Association is in fact a world 
brotherhood, at work on the personal and 
social program of Jesus Christ and in the 
spirit and power of the Gospel. 

The future of the Secretaryship will he in 
proportion to its religious passion. The 
initial motive and driving power of the 
Association was a dominant religious 
passion, and every forward step in the 
progress of the Association movement 
can be traced to the religious impulse. 
Where this religious motive becomes a 
spent force, the Association halts in the 
face of opportunity and either dies, or, 
while living on the momentum of its past, 
fails to achieve the object which justifies 
its existence. 

The future of the Secretaryship, therefore, 
is in the realm of religious achievement, 
possible only to men who possess and are 
possessed by the dominant religious motive. 



90 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

The Secretary of the future will be a man 
in whom this motive has become a master 
passion, who hesitates at nothing and 
achieves the impossible, for all things 
are his. 

He has chosen unselfishly and without 
reservation to do what he had reason to 
believe was the will of God for his life; 
he has proved by experience that this 
will is ''good and acceptable"; and he 
knows that before him is the work and 
with him are the boundless resources of 
God. 

1. Upon whom does the future of the 

Secretaryship depend r Why ? 

2. What fact in the Secretaryship has 

caused a number of men to drop 
out, and how is this an encourage- 
ment to strong men? 

3. What promise of a future is there in 

a city Secretaryship? 

4. In the rural Secretaryship? 

5. In other branches of the calling? 

6. What sort of man should enter the 



FUTURE 91 

foreign work, from the point of 
view of the future it offers? 
7. What bearing has the evangelistic 
spirit upon the future of the Sec- 
retaryship? 



CHAPTER X 

HOW TO ENTER THE SECRETARY- 
SHIP 

For the man who has chosen the Secre- 
taryship as his life work, and entered an 
Association College for his professional 
training; the way opens naturally, on 
graduation, into that form of Association 
work for which he is prepared. 

Doubtless an increasing number of 
young men, particularly those who have 
been developed as older boy. leaders in 
the Association Boys' Work, _will prac- 
tically choose the Secretaryship as their 
profession before entering college, or 
early in their college course. These men 
will go forward into the Association Col- 
leges, in preparation for their chosen pro- 
fession, as others go into the medical, 
theological, law, and engineering schools. 

To many men, however, the suggestion 
of the Secretaryship wdll come as an invi- 

92 



HOW TO ENTER 93 

tation to consider a work about which 
they have known little or nothing from 
personal experience or observation. The 
suggestion will come also to men of abil- 
ity, who, while attracted to the Associa- 
tion, are not sure of themselves as to their 
snecial adaptation to a work of this kind. 
How can these men find their way into 
the Secretaryship? 

Three sign posts mark a well-worn 
path, by which men who have evidently 
worked with God have found their way 
into the will of God for their life work. 

1. Investigation, The work in question 
should be investigated as to its nature, 
opportunities, and requirements and its 
appeal to the best or major capacities in 
the man's life. The information and in- 
terpretations contained in this booklet 
have been assembled to facilitate such 
an investigation of the Secretaryship. 
Attendance at a conference where the 
work of the Association is explained, and 
interviews with Association leaders — 
especially representatives of Association 
State Recruiting Committees, or of the 



94 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

Secretarial Bureau of the International 
Committee- — ^will give information and 
direction. 

The process of investigation, however, 
is mutual. The men who are the custo- 
dians of the work, or whose judgment and 
cooperation are essential to the opening 
of the doors into it, need evidence as to 
the qualifications of the man, as much as 
he needs to be assured concerning the 
opportunity in the Secretaryship. The 
man, therefore, needs to offer himself as 
a candidate in order that the facts con- 
cernmg him may be ascertained, on 
which a judgment may be based as to his 
adaptation to the work. 

2. Prayer, Doubtless there will be 
latent or unrecognized capacities in the 
man and undiscovered opportimities in 
the work not revealed by self -analysis or 
investigation. For these reasons, as well 
as for the confidence and strength that 
come with the consciousness that one is 
working with God, the man needs to 
commit his life and his life program, with 
sincerity and obedience, to God in prayer 



HOW TO ENTER 95 

and to wait confidently on God for guid- 
ance into, or away from, the work in ques- 
tion. 

3. Service, There Is such a thing as 
"learning by doing." In the doing of a 
task, one not only learns about the work 
in which he is engaged, but discovers in 
himself aptitude or lack of aptitude for it. 
The path of service, therefore, leads, not 
only to the place of observation, but to 
the experience of seK-discovery. 

There are many Assistants' positions 
in the Association movement, and ex- 
perience in such positions, in the well- 
organized Associations, frequently leads to 
promotion to positions of responsibility in 
the Secretaryship. The man, therefore, 
who has not "found himself, " may experi- 
ment as an Assistant, if a suitable opening 
for such experimentation may be found 
for him, such as is provided through "The 
Fellowship Plan." As a man "makes 
good " he realizes that the door has opened 
for him into a work that he can do, a 
work worth doing, and that brings with 
it the joy of achievement. He is then in 



96 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

position to understand the experience of 
"the seventy" hitherto inexperienced 
disciples, whom Jesus sent out and who 
"returned again with joy saying, Lord, 
even the devils are subject unto us 
through thy name." 

College graduates who are not con- 
vinced as to their call to the Association 
Secretaryship as a life work, or who are 
unable to enter at once upon a graduate 
course of professional training in an Asso- 
ciation College, may be related, through 
"The Fellowship Plan," to a selected 
Association for experience and training. 
This includes a diversified experience, 
with coaching and such instruction as 
may be given in the Training Center and 
Summer School courses. The initial com- 
pensation covers living expenses, and in- 
crease and promotion come as the Fellow- 
ship man "makes good." 

The Plan is offered as an accommodation 
for college men who, without it, might 
not be able even to investigate the Sec- 
retaryship. It is hoped that the Fellow- 
ship experience, in not a few instances. 



HOW TO ENTER 97 

will lead to graduate study in further 
and more fundamental preparation for 
the Secretaryship, such as may be ob- 
tained in one of the Association Colleges. 
To the man who, "following the gleam" 
on the path to the will of God, finds his 
way into the Association Secretaryship, 
there opens out a great life work, full of 
opportunities for practical service, and 
with constant stimulus to self-improve- 
ment. Such a life will be rich in friend- 
ship, distinguished by leadership, unique 
in achievement, abounding with satis- 
faction, and filled with the consciousness 
of the companionship of God. 

1. What is the standard method of 

professional training for the Secre- 
taryship when a man knows this is 
to be his calling? 

2. By what means may a man investi- 

gate the Secretaryship? 

3. How may a man himself be investi- 

gated as to his fitness for the 
Secretaryship? 

4. What may be expected of prayer 



98 ASSOCIATION SECRETARYSHIP 

while considering entering Associa- 
tion work? 

5. Under what circumstances, or con- 

ditions, can service help a man to 
"find himself" and his work? 

6. What is the Fellowship Plan and in 

what particulars does it differ from 
an ordinary Assistant Secretary- 
ship ? 

7. You have read a careful presenta- 

tion of the Secretaryship and now 
what action will you take? What 
are you going to do about it? 

8. To you who are already employed 

officers of the Association: how 
can you use the facts and ideas 
here presented? 

9. Where can the men be found who 

measure up to the standard of the 
Secretaryship here presented, and 
how may these considerations be 
brought to their attention? 



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